How Burma?s national hero charmed the British general... "As the war in Burma swung the way of the Allies, the British commander, field-marshal William Slim, was faced with the problem of how to handle the Burma National Army led by Aung San. In the final months of the war the BNA forces changed sides, deserting Japan and opting to fight alongside the Allies. ?I had all along believed they could be a nuisance to the enemy but, unless their activities were closely tied in with ours, they promised to be almost as big a nuisance to us,? recalled Slim, in his memoirs, Defeat Into Victory. ?It seemed to me that the only way satisfactorily to control them was to get hold of their Commander-in-Chief, Aung San, and to make him accept my orders. This, from what I knew of him and of the extreme Burmese nationalists, I thought might be difficult, but worth trying.?..."